Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from...

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Trump and the UN: Hiding the Invisible Hands that Bleed Us

By Lij Teodrose Fikremariam on August 21, 2017

In light of Donald Trump’s speech today at the United Nations, this article is being reprised to remind the world that we live in a bifurcated society. Diplomacy is nothing more than the language of the elites and leaders who are foisted on us to give us some semblance of order and accountability. In reality, there is another layer where decisions that impact the world are made behind closed doors, where plutocrats dictate their will and these leaders bow to the demands of those who control capital (currency).

The United Nations is thus a joke, a kabuki dance where the pretense of right makes might is projected to the world. In reality, it’s might that makes right as the biggest guns and biggest bank accounts reign supreme. This article below was written a couple of weeks ago when Donald Trump announced that he would perpetuate the war that Obama was supposed to end. Politics is a shell game, we get distracted by politics and staged drama, all along policies remain constant and capital larcenists continue to use the charade of Democracy and euphemism of “defending freeedom” to steal from nations globally.

On my way to get a cup of coffee this morning, I walked by a homeless veteran who was deteriorating in barrenness on the streets of Queens, New York. Wishing I could do more but limited by life, I gave him a dollar and went about my way. As I traveled to my destination, I could not get the image of the homeless veteran out of my mind. I pondered about his life, perhaps he was once a teenager full of vigor and life with a promising future before the ravages of war and memories of bloodshed broke him and drove him to a life of indigence and strife.

This is speculation of course; I did not take the time to talk to him and find out about his life experience. So I did the next best thing, I gave him a bill and scuttled off. We all do this; even the most loving souls occasionally build walls to keep at bay the overwhelming burdens of the world. Yet for some reason, this homeless man on 45th Avenue in Woodside refused to stop occupying my mind. It was easy to ignore the invisible denizen who reside on pavements and city benches when I was sipping mocha latte on my way to the Department of Treasury three years ago. No longer can I turn to avoidance after I counted the same statistics I once overlooked as neighbors and comrades not too long ago.

When I sat down to have my long awaited coffee and started to read about the happenings of the world, all the sudden it hit me why the destitute veteran’s plight gnawed at me so. Last evening, someone mentioned my name in a Tweet about Donald Trump’s plan for Afghanistan and how our commander-in-chief plans to win a war that has been raging on for the past 16 years and counting. We are a nation that has been ensnared in one war after another since WWII. Yet the Afghanistan War stands out amid the incessant war mongering of our government; this is the longest state of war that United States has been in since America’s inception.

The contrast between the people on the street walking by this nameless veteran as they were listening to music in their ear buds and chatting away on social media compared to the dejection of the aforementioned vagabond could not be any starker. I’ve tasted, for more than a year, the utter despair homelessness can imbue in the heart and how lack of shelter and food can render the strongest of men into a state of total disrepair [read the poem “Silent Salute” below the Ghion Cast where I interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Rick Belt]. Seeing the disheveled veteran being ignored by so many people on their way to work evoked a state of ennui in my heart.

While drinking my cup of coffee, I started to reflect about life and thought about the procession of veterans I met over the past two years [read Blessed are the Peacekeepers]. It is a stain on the fabric of our nation and our collective shame that veterans who go to war under the pretext of defending freedom are treated to the indifference of the public and the malfeasance of politicians when they return home. Broken by the horrors of PTSD and the recall of night terrors, one veteran every twenty minutes commits suicide and many more endure lives of utter bleakness and hopelessness. Yet the war machine beats on as it grinds to a pulp soldiers and civilians alike in order to feed the greed of profiteers and perpetuate the capital larceny or globalists.

I am reminded of a speech that George Bush gave at the onset of the Afghanistan War. When asked what Americans can do to get behind the war effort, Bush responded that we should go about our regular lives and that Americans should continue shopping and consuming the trinkets and goods produced by the very corporations which are financing and profiting from the wars Bush would go on to start. Cash in; cash out. The military-financial complex counts profits by arming and financing endless factions throughout the world only to make money on the back end as we fight the very same monsters we keep creating [read the Brzezinski Standard].

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Obama came in promising to end the immoral and illegal wars of Bush only to further those same wars and add more bricks to the fire by incinerating Yemen, Libya and Syria to the ground. Meanwhile, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue unabated even though the bankrupt Corporate State Media peddles the lies that Obama ended Bush’s wars [read Between a Blow Shill and a Pretentious Brooks]. As long as we are occupying foreign lands, have “boots on the ground” and bomb people’s lands without consent, we will forever be enmeshed in the very wars the framers of the Constitution implored us to avoid. Obama was a continuation of Bush’s foreign and domestic policies by other means; the Nobel Peace Prize Committee should forever be mocked for conferring the title of peace president on Obama who, along with Bush and Clinton, should be indicted as war criminals.

Do you think it’s hyperbole to call the presidents of America war criminals? What would happen if Russia bombed New Jersey the way Obama bombed Syria? What would happen if Iran dropped a M.O.A.B. on Saudi Arabia the way that Trump did in Afghanistan? What would the reaction of the world be if North Korea blew apart Japan? Yet, our government–acting at the behest of multinational corporations–keeps blowing apart one nation after another only to cover up their atrocities by using Orwellian speak like “war on terror” or “defending freedom”. It’s always a pretext that allows tyrants to oppress others; it’s always nationalism that prevents people from waking up to the deviltry of their leaders.

This is how Germans in the 1920’s and 30’s embraced Hitler; they let nationalism get in the way of better judgement. It did not end well for Germany; this continuous state of war will not end well for us either. I hope we reclaim our government from these equally malicious Democratic and Republican parties before Dallas is turned into the 21st century Dresden. We are being led by alternative humans who see nothing wrong with committing a holocaust on people throughout the world in order to maximize their profits. Sadder yet, we keep getting lulled into complacency as we equate people who refuse to be subjugated with terrorists who commit horrors against civilians.

Our government, which is owned by moneyed interests and thus governs without consent, is playing with fire. Trump is going to announce the deployment of an additional 4,000 troops in this war without end. What is 4,000 troops going to do other than chew up an additional 4,000 soldiers and 40,000 more Afghani lives? Afghanistan is an empire killer; it did not end very well for the USSR–16 years later we still refuse to learn the lessons from the humiliating defeat of the Red army. We better disavow the advice that George Bush imparted and start paying attention to what these globalist puppets are doing in our names. What goes on in Kabul can one day happen in Kansas; the bombs our mafia government deploys to target innocent lives in Aleppo can one day target innocent lives in Atlanta. Injustice committed against a few can one day envelop all in darkness.

Think about it for a minute, if Russians were occupying Texas and periodically bombing Houston or Galveston, how would we react as a people? How would we react if we had to go to work by traveling through multiple Russian checkpoints and if our uncles and nieces were blown to bits by Putin’s drones? What type of backlash do you think door to door searches by Russians would create from the American public? Would we accept being called terrorists if we refused to be occupied indefinitely by a foreign power? It is in the DNA of people to be free; none but a few willingly submit to subjugation by outsiders and occupation by other nations.

Yet, this is the exact position our nation has been led to. We have become the judge, jury, police and executioner of the world as we oppress endless countries throughout the world. Politicians and corporate interests hide behind the flag and feign patriotism as they cheer lead for a perpetual state of war. War is sold as a virtue; CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the media establishment beat battle drums in order to maximize their revenue streams by way of eyeballs and clicks. Meanwhile, veterans who suffer and bleed overseas are left to be lepers in the streets.

Keep what you read above in mind as you hear our first orangutan president impose his shill on the nation tonight. The rhetoric spewing out of Donald Trump’s mouth will be identical to the rhetoric of Obama and Bush before him. He will promise a new direction and a way to conclude the war in Afghanistan and the Middle East in victory. Pay no attention to the charlatan, he is just talking out of both sides of his lips. The truth is that the war in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and the countless wars our immoral federated government keeps declaring in the name of corporatism is a cash cow that enriches one too many fat pigs for these wars to ever come to a conclusion. We have entered into a paradigm of infinite wars as innumerable industries are profiting from the blood that continues to be shed overseas.

It’s not just the military-financial complex that is reaping billions of dollars from these wars. There are a litany of cottage industries that count their checks each time a corporate bomb blows apart civilians and combatants alike. Politicians, pundits, weapons companies, non-profits, media outlets, and NGOs–the number of entities that thrive at the alter of wars is too many to count. We keep declaring wars against external agents casting extremists as threats to our Democracy and way of life; yet in truth the threats are internal operatives who hijacked our government and all levers of power in order to steal the wealth of nations and feed the unbending greed of their plutocratic patrons.

Atop all these pigs who are feeding at the trough of wars are the military-financial and prison-industrial complexes. These two interests were the driving force behind the Afghanistan War to begin with. Bush started the farcical war on terror in the Middle East not to protect us from the Taliban and Osama but to enhance the P/E ratios of companies like Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Global Tel-Link and Corizon to name a few of the companies that harvest billions of dollars by manufacturing weapons that kill innocents and buildings that imprison millions throughout America.

Before the Afghanistan war started in 2002, the Taliban eradicated opium commerce through the country. This is not to endorse the ruthless and brutal ways of the Taliban, but their extremism nonetheless managed to finish off the poppy trade in Afghanistan. After the Taliban were toppled, the opium industry came back with a vengeance in Afghanistan and they have been producing a bumper crop of opium poppy ever since. The suffering of Afghani lives is connected to the blithe of opioid addiction in America; the war chickens always come home to roost.

Afghanistan thus served multiple purposes; the weapons manufacturers and defense contractors entered into an era of never ending revenue growth the minute the first Tomahawk missile was lobed into Kandahar. Likewise, the drug trade metastasized like a stage IV cancer as Afghanistan’s opium flooded the world markets. Private prisons and their affiliated companies benefited by derivative; the record number of heroin overdoses and the addiction epidemic we are witnessing is feeding the machine of privatized prisons. Our government has managed to reconstitute slavery in America; one out of every 20 Americans keep cycling through the prison-industrial complex as indentured servants of the corporate state.

One pig after the other keep feeding at the trough of war while countless vets continue to wither in the streets and the rest of us continue to take one step closer to financial insolvency. But we keep getting distracted by politics and these double-speaking politicians whose only role is to divert our attention from the swines who are fattening their wallets through wars and mass suffering. This is not about politics; from the days of Woodrow Wilson to the present, we have been marched from one illegal war to another as each president and both parties keep pushing wars in the name of Democracy–in reality the wars have always been about corporate profits and enhancing the wealth of billionaires.Though the swine who count opulence each time a bullet ricochet around the world are a few compared to the rest of humanity, the truth is that all of us are intertwined to this system of global greed and concentrated graft that capitalism has become. I myself once worked as a defense consultant where I helped further the mission of the Department of Defense and Civil agencies throughout the National Capital Region. Few among us can say that our hands are clean of this decadent system of global oppression; our tax dollars and most of our employers are tied into the military-financial and prison-industrial complexes.

I started the Ghion Journal to counter the media narratives of sensationalism and yellow journalism, yet I too get drawn into the Corporate State Media model of being drawn to the fatuous–by speaking against their excesses, I partake in their excesses. This is the existential question of humanity; we are drawn to fire more than we are drawn to love and coexistence. After all, how many reading this article would have been drawn to it if the feature picture was of the homeless man and the story was about his struggles. We are guilty of perpetuating the very nonsense we are outraged over because we let red meat issues act like chimes to Pavlov’s dog–it seems we are only getting the government we deserve.

We keep being led by con artists and swindlers who speak out for justice with forked tongues. Some blatantly preach more hatred and anger as they push the world closer to another global conflagration that could end us all. Others yet pretend to be saner voices while they keep painting injustice through the prism of partisan ideologies. Pundits abound in the Corporate State Media who keep perpetuating the very iniquities they are bloviating again. They rebuff courage and instead occupy partisan lanes in order to incite anger and play up the political divides. Pay attention to these shills in the establishment press; if they are criticizing only one faction and present injustice through ideological lenses, discount them as frauds and demagogues who are being paid to further the very excesses they are feigning outrage over.

If you want to know the state of America, no need to listen to the carnival barker Trump or the equally pernicious Democrats and the punditry in the Corporate State Media. When it comes to our politics and the professional shysters who partake in it, almost all of them are just speaking gibberish as they make money hand over fist. Just go down to your nearest city and look for man asking for change with a sign that reads “homeless vet” and you will begin to understand that global suffering is interconnected and the source is the trough of capital greed and the pigs who feast from it. #UNDeception

War is hell for all except for the swine and swindlers who feed at the trough of bloodshed::

If you are appreciated the message behind this write up and you stand against the pigs who keep bleeding the planet for the sake of greed and capital larceny, share this article on social media using #UnDeception

Check out the Ghion Cast below where I interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Rick Belt, a Vietnam War veteran who calls home Fort Collins, Colorado and a man who has an amazing story to tell about his experiences in war and trying to fit back in as a civilian back home.

Silent Salute

To the soldiers who sacrificed

Did their duty without asking

I express outrage against injustice

Over immoral wars and endless carnage

I am speaking out for you in the process

Veterans in the end understand one thing

Their fellow men were never their enemy

To this day fierce rivals from past conflicts

Embrace after the last bullets have been fired

Soldiers salute and do their duty that is best

The sorrows they go through alone

Trauma induced by bodies and reduced humanity

Only to come back home and encounter Satan’s embrace

Flash backs prompting cold sweats

Bullets and blood droplets

Too much for the mind to process

Those who die in wars are fortunate

It’s the veterans, the survivors

Who carry the burdens of these remembrances

Fallen comrades and innocent children

Indiscriminately swallowed whole by turbulence

Tears mixing with blood stains

Cries drowned out by battle drums

War is humanity’s utmost blemish

Concealed by propaganda and theatrics

Patriotism birthing negligence

Our conscience is subverted into ignorance

As we enjoy disengagement’s bliss

Veterans suffer depression’s kiss

Politicians, profiteers and Hollywood

Glorifying war horrors by bending reality

Obfuscating suffering with special effects and rhetoric

But to the soldier their truth is the opposite

Rat-tat-tat-tat bullets shattering God’s presence

Untold masses disappearing into graves and silence

We wave flags thanking them for service

They shiver alone bearing the cost of compliance

Final judgments by way of triggers and buttons

Only to come back home

Shock and awe replaced by shock trauma

Nightmares that never end

Being continually transported back to mayhem

The battle field redrawn into the mind’s synapses

Piercing quietness with shrieks and terrors

Spouses who grow estranged

Children unable to comprehend

Concern pixelating into absence

Loneliness the only friend that remains

The proud and few become islands

Invisible wounds breaking cognizance

This is why so many end up homeless

Many more embracing suicide’s cuddle

Despair muffles life and blends into darkness

To be met by society’s mind numbing indifference

We step over them daily

Once warriors turned into the indigent

Salutes being returned with diffidence

Yet in this silence I stand for you

May God forever bless you

Where you are broken

May you mend into fullness

Sergeant Black in DC

Vietnam War survivor

Gunny Stevens in Greenville

Korean War survivor

Derrick in Colorado

Iraq War survivor

Frank in Ankeny Iowa

World War II survivor

Countless others who I have met

Had the honor of sharing meals with

May your struggles be fleeting

But your blessings be eternal

In silence I salute you

~ The two poems are excerpts from Serendipity’s Trace, a book I wrote while I was in a boot camp called life which led to a harvest called purpose. Click HERE or the picture below to find out more ~

If you want to know how we can end wars during our lifetime, check out the video below that discusses how we can overcome our differences and coexist as humans.

Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from a life of upper-middle class privilege to a time spent with the huddled masses taught Teodrose a valuable lesson in the essence of togetherness and the need to speak against injustice.

Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Lij Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Lij Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.